Special Correspondent
Even as work on widening the Mysuru-Bengaluru highway is progressing at a brisk pace, two cases of highway robberies have been reported on the busy stretch of road over the last one month.
A car proceeding from Bengaluru to Kerala was waylaid near Budanur last month and the occupant was forced to hand over ₹ 1 lakh to the robbers; a similar case was reported on the same stretch of road near Hosa Budanur last week, putting the Mandya district police on alert.
In the robbery reported last week, car-borne assailants waylaid the Kerala-bound car around 7 a.m. and took away ₹ 20 lakh.
A Kerala-based jewellery businessman had asked two of his relatives, Nilesh and Rishikesh, to collect ₹20 lakh from a friend in Bengaluru. The robbery occurred when the duo was returning to Kerala with the cash. The assailants not only snatched the cash from the complainants, but also drove away with the car, which was later found abandoned near Kunigal in Tumkur district.
Superintendent of Police, Mandya, Yathish N. has constituted a special team under Deputy Superintendent of Police, Mandya sub-division, Manjunath T., to investigate the matter. Mr. Manjunath said the investigation into the cases was under way.
It may be mentioned here that highway robberies on the Bengaluru-Mysuru National Highway 275, which connects Kerala, is not a new phenomenon. A number of such incidents have been reported not only on the Mysuru-Bengaluru stretch, but also beyond Mysuru on the roads leading to Kerala via Nanjangud as well as Hunsur.
The police have cracked several cases, including the sensational one reported near Yelwal on the outskirts of Mysuru in January 2014.
The two highway robberies in Mandya district come close on the heels of a gang of lathi-wielding masked men waylaying a car on the highway near Nanjangud last month. Video footage of the incident showed the unidentified assailants blocking the car’s path on the highway before assaulting the person inside and driving it away with the occupant.
Though the Mysuru district police had not received any complaint, sources said the police had taken up the matter and were trying to identify the attackers.
Though the Mandya district police had received complaints from the Kerala-based victims in the highway robberies at Budanur, sources in the police said most of the victims in such highway robberies shy away from lodging a complaint if they had lost “unaccounted” for money.
